


Expectations

by Lynzee005



Category: Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8658862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynzee005/pseuds/Lynzee005
Summary: An angry gang member with retribution on his mind. An FBI Agent facing down an existential crisis. An unlikely ally. 
What more could you want on a fake dinner date?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



> I hope I have done this pairing justice! It was a fun prompt to fill and I really enjoyed writing it--thanks for giving me the chance to dive back into the world of ST:FBE after a long absence! Happy Holidays!!!

Myles made a noise as they entered through the side door of the small cafe. “Ugh, _this_ is the place you think of when you hear the word ‘date’?” he asked.

Tara rolled her eyes. “It’s a fake date, Myles,” she said, looking around at the mostly empty cafe, sparsely populated with diners and patrons. _All FBI_ , Tara realized; no civilians were in sight, as per Bureau regulations regarding sting operations.

It should have made her feel comfortable, but it only served to underscore the surreality of this whole endeavour. She wanted it to be over. She wanted to go home and take a bath. She wanted to curl up with a glass of wine and watch a movie. She wanted to exist without looking over her shoulder.

To do that, she had to do this.

_The price we pay, I guess_ , she thought, clearing her throat and bringing herself back to the present.

“Besides,” she continued. “This was the only place in the District that had bullet proof glass already installed in their front window.”

Myles shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Well it’s no Bistro Voltaire,” he whined as the greeter showed them to their table. “ _Apres vous_ ,” he said to Tara as they walked into the restaurant.

As they sat down, Myles received confirmation via his earpiece that their team, situated outside on the street, had visual contact with them.

“We’re good to go,” he said to Tara.

She glanced nervously out the window. The glare from the lights inside the restaurant made it nearly impossible to see anything. She thought that was probably a good thing.

“I guess all we have to do is wait,” she said.

Myles perused the menu. “Well at least order something,” he said. “My treat.”

Tara blushed. “That’s not necessary, Myles.”

“I know,” he replied. “But we should at least _pretend_ that we’re on a date, shouldn’t we? I mean, we can’t very well sit here all night and order nothing, can we?”

Tara smiled and looked down at her menu. “No, I suppose not,” she replied.

“‘Course, if this were a _real_ date,” Myles started. “You can be _absolutely certain_ that we wouldn’t be eating here.”

Tara laughed. “Oh and I’m sure you’re just an expert on wining and dining?”

Myles arched his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he said. “You could say I learned from the best. My grandfather, Myles Leland Senior, wooed my grandmother with candlelit dinners at Marliave and at Parker’s, back in Boston. And my father, Myles Leland Junior, was fond of taking my mother on strolls around Faneuil Hall to see the buskers on warm summer evenings.” He paused. “He proposed to her there, you know.”

“I did not know that,” Tara grinned as she shook her head.

“Of course, were it up to me, I would—”  he paused, and Tara looked up at him.

“You would what?” she asked.

His eyes softened a little and he quirked a small smile. “Well, it would depend on the girl.”

Tara did her level best to hide her surprise, and then questioned why she was surprised at all. She had always thought of him as a chauvinist, a wannabe alpha male who would rather charge ahead and do what he wanted rather than bogging down the works by taking anyone else into consideration. She half expected him to order her food for her. But Tara admittedly had very little to go on in that regard; mostly, she had second-hand accounts from Lucy about their failed romance, which hadn’t lasted very long and had ended badly. _Not exactly a solid source of information, Agent Williams_ , she chided herself.

Why _wouldn’t_ Myles be capable of considering his date and her expectations, her likes and dislikes?

“It would?” she asked him.

“Of course,” he said, putting his menu down and steepling his fingers in front of him. “Maybe she likes baseball, or maybe she likes the opera or the symphony. Maybe she enjoys pizza and maybe she enjoys sushi. Maybe she can’t stand jazz.” He shrugged and picked up his menu again. “The key to a good first date is to plan. Ask a lot of questions in advance. Read the signs. Go from there.”

Tara couldn’t remember the last time she had gone on a first date where the man she was dating took any of that into account; to find out that Myles, of all people, was miles ahead of where her dates usually were was…amusing and surprising and a little bit depressing all rolled into one. She chuckled. “I guess I have you all wrong, Myles Leland the Third.”

He shrugged. “Most people do,” he said.

Tara turned her eyes back to the menu, but she wasn’t really reading the items. Her mind was drifting back to the reason she was there, sitting exposed behind three inches of bulletproof glass. A shiver ran down her spine.

“What are you going to order?” he asked her.

“I-I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice quiet and shaking. “This could be my last meal…” The thought struck her hard and she laughed in spite of herself. “No pressure, right?”

Myles’s hand reached out to cover hers, and Tara blinked away tears.

“Tara,” he said softly, “You’re not going to die tonight. Not on my watch.”

She flipped her hand over so they were touching, palm to palm; she squeezed his fingers and nodded a little. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Myles.”

“Do what?”

She gestured in a shallow arc around her. “This—the whole FBI thing.”

Myles didn’t immediately respond, but he kept his hand against hers for a long moment. “Tara, I—” 

“You know, I’ve never used my gun in the field before this.”

Myles squeezed her hand back. “Yes, I know that,” he said.

Her conversation with Sue from a few nights earlier replayed in her mind. She shook her head. “I never really even wanted to be an FBI Agent,” she said. “I think I would have been totally and completely fulfilled in some private sector job, cyber security or web development. Maybe I would have moved to California and gotten a job in Silicon Valley. Instead of sitting here, I’d be on some cafe terrace with a glass of merlot. I’d have a tan, that’s for sure.” She smiled. “I was always very good at computers right from the start.”

“You’re a natural,” Myles replied. “I’ve never seen anyone work a motherboard the way you can.”

Tara laughed inwardly, wondering if Myles even understood what a motherboard was. But she appreciated his sudden enthusiasm and the vote of confidence in her abilities, even if she didn’t quite believe it herself. “Well, it took a long time to really learn it, understand it…but I had a knack for it, I suppose,” she said. “I was more fascinated than anything. By electronics, microchips, that kind of thing. As a kid, my friends all had Easy Bake Ovens, and while they were baking these little muffins and cupcakes, here I was trying to take it apart to see how it worked.”

“Seems logical.”

She laughed, letting the sound trail off before continuing. “I think my mom was a bit disappointed by all that.”

Myles cocked his head to the side, almost imperceptibly. “Why?”

Tara shrugged. “I’m an only child, and my mom was an only child, so I think she always wanted a daughter so that she’d always have a friend, maybe. I’m not sure. It’s tough, I think, to want something your whole life and to get it but it’s not exactly what you’d hoped for.”

“I don’t understand,” Myles said. “How did she not get what she’d hoped for?”

“I think she expected that I’d be into the normal girly stuff, you know—shopping and hair and makeup—and I was exactly the opposite. I tried to be interested in it, for her sake, but what I really wanted to do was go to summer camps for computer programmers, trading my curling iron for a soldering iron,” she said. “I can’t imagine she was pleased.”

“Did she tell you this?”

“No, not at all!” Tara said. “Actually, the day I told her that I had been accepted to the Academy…gosh, I don’t think I’d ever seen her so happy. She wanted to know why I hadn’t told her before, and she was so excited for me. She was probably pretty proud that day.” Tara looked down at her hands. “If she could see where I am now, I don’t think she’d feel the same way.”

“Why on earth not?” Myles asked, his voice terse enough to catch her attention.

“Well…Myles, I took someone’s life. That’s not something you write home about.”

“On the contrary,” Myles objected. “You put to use years of training and your considerable skills as an FBI Agent to save countless lives.”

Tara took a moment to consider it from that angle. It’s not that she hadn’t thought of it before, but hearing it from Myles—the hardest man in the office to impress—cast it all in such a different light. 

He continued. “You did that. You saved lives. If you had stayed in…wherever it is you’re from…and if you’d gotten some boring desk job in telecommunications or cybersecurity, people would have died. I can’t think of a moment where a parent would be more proud of their child.” He was watching her; Tara could feel his eyes on her face even as she kept her own eyes averted. “Tara? You did the right thing. And I’m sure that your mother, no matter what she may have felt when you were growing up, understands that this is your purpose, your gift to this world. You’re _raison d’être_.”

Tara was taken aback. “Do you really think so?”

Myles shrugged but ultimately nodded his head. “Speaking as someone who has a lot experience being on her end of this equation, I suspect you haven’t let her confound your expectations enough,” he said. “You’d be surprised what we’re capable of if you give us a chance.”

Tara looked at Myles, smiling as she did so. Her eyes, already filled with tears, threatened to spill; but she kept it together as she regarded her colleague with a mixture of awe and camaraderie. Perhaps there was more to him than any of their team had ever imagined.

_Of course there is,_ she thought. For all his social shortcomings, he was still a human being, full of contradictions and complexity. Biting sarcasm could live quite nicely next door to genuine sincerity, even in someone like Myles Leland III.

“You’re right,” Tara said finally, reaching over and giving his hand another squeeze. “You’re absolutely right.” She sat up a little straighter, squared her shoulders, flipped her hair back behind her ear. “And if—”  she caught herself, “— _when_ —I get home tonight, I’m going to call my mom. We’re long overdue for a good heart-to-heart.”

“Now that is the first good idea you’ve had in a while, Williams,” he said. Tara grinned; the moment was over, but she wasn’t going to forget it, not for a long time. He turned back to his menu and pretended to be engrossed. “Now have you decided what you’re going to order? I’m sure their soups are _somewhat_ passable…”


End file.
